Trustee Dinner
Oct. 17th, 2004 04:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
candylandI'm an RA in my dorm, and with that comes certain responsibility. But there was nothing about a Trustee dinner on the list of expectations, that's for sure! Friday night was a Trustee Dinner at my university, and they invited all the RA's and members of Resident Life Staff to the dinner. It's a pretty big deal, all dressed up and REAL FOOD and stuff. So I was a little bit nervous. I'm kind of a clutz, and sometimes I speak before I think, so...yeah.
What compounded this was the fact that they gave us a list of things we WEREN'T supposed to talk about at the dinner. A lot of them were things we wouldn't usually think twice about discussing--like the "war stories" of being an RA (we do discuss things that happen amidst ourselves with fair regularity), or slang terms (like calling it the "drunk bus" instead of the Rides program, a bus that takes people around, usually to and from the bar on party nights), and we were DEFINITELY not supposed to talk about any of the "juicy" stuff that goes on, like people puking in the bathrooms and whatnot, which has happened.
But anyway, we all got dressed up and went down to the Ballroom, where it was being held. There was a reception from six to seven, and then the dinner was at seven. They told us not to stay within our respective staffs, and to spread out and mingle with everyone. But my staff is pretty close-knit, so we just kind of grouped together at one of the tables, and the Trustees came to us. We felt kind of silly--and I did manage to spill my pop. Only me...
Then the dinner started, and again we weren't allowed to sit as a complete staff. So we paired up, buddy-system style ^_^ Kelly and I buddied, and ended up at a table with a Trustee, one of the Res. Life directors, and a couple of RAs from other buildings.
And I swear to you, it seemed like the Trustees were ASKING about everything we had been told NOT to talk about. They wanted the juicy stuff. They asked if there were many incidents in which we had to go get back-up or call for ambulances and stuff. We just tried to remain as noncommital as possible about those particular questions. My table ended up in a large discussion of politics--most of us were Kerry people, no offense to anyone who might like Bush.
We ate. The salad was amazing--it sounds kinda weird to say that, but it was. It was dark greens, with some kind of vinagrette on it, and Swiss cheese cubes, mandarin oranges, and some sort of nut. It was divine! Then we had the main course--steak, twice-baked potatoes, and a veggie mix. It was good, 'cept for one thing. The steak was still mooing.
Carrot cake for dessert. Meh. It was okay.
Some people talked, we all introduced ourselves, etc. It went on, all was well, and we left. Five out of the six of our staff members walked back together, laughing about the undercooked steak. When we got back to the dorm, we changed into human clothes (since this was a dress-up affair), and then some of the girls said they were going to Taco John's. Poor me was on duty, so I couldn't leave the dorm, but they were wonderful and brought me food.
I'd finished eating, and then Jen and I went on rounds...well, perhaps "went on rounds" would be a little more accurate. It was a Friday--a party night--so we were supposed to do rounds at ten, midnight, and two AM. Rounds means that we walk through the dorm and make sure everything's okay for the night. Well, we were all tired, and there's nobody in the building because it's fall break, soooooo we shirked a little bit. We sort of did ten o'clock rounds (i.e. we checked out a little bit of the building), and then we joined our fellow RA's in the main lounge where we all watched a movie together.
That was actually a lot of fun. See, during RA training we spent a lot of time in our individual staffs, divided up by building or complex: Grand/Liberty, Suites/Cottages, Pierce/White, and Swope. Swope (the all-female dorm) is all by its lonesome, so it was always just the nine of us girls and our R.D. For the entire duration of our RA training, we nine were practically joined at the hip, spending almost all of our time together. We had movie nights, we often ate together, and just hung out. Well, once classes started up, we barely get to see each other except for at our weekly meetings.
So it was really nice to get to just hang out and do nothing. At midnight, we did rounds again, and then I went to bed. It was a great evening, all in all. And I slept quite well--Saturday was a great day to sleep in. That was my Friday.
It's fall break now, and I'm on duty, so now I get to just hang out and hope nothing goes wrong. Whoopee.
Talk to everyone later!
Candy-chan ^_^
"Neighborhood means how far you can walk in flip-flops and not kill your feet." -Yukari, Azumanga Daioh
What compounded this was the fact that they gave us a list of things we WEREN'T supposed to talk about at the dinner. A lot of them were things we wouldn't usually think twice about discussing--like the "war stories" of being an RA (we do discuss things that happen amidst ourselves with fair regularity), or slang terms (like calling it the "drunk bus" instead of the Rides program, a bus that takes people around, usually to and from the bar on party nights), and we were DEFINITELY not supposed to talk about any of the "juicy" stuff that goes on, like people puking in the bathrooms and whatnot, which has happened.
But anyway, we all got dressed up and went down to the Ballroom, where it was being held. There was a reception from six to seven, and then the dinner was at seven. They told us not to stay within our respective staffs, and to spread out and mingle with everyone. But my staff is pretty close-knit, so we just kind of grouped together at one of the tables, and the Trustees came to us. We felt kind of silly--and I did manage to spill my pop. Only me...
Then the dinner started, and again we weren't allowed to sit as a complete staff. So we paired up, buddy-system style ^_^ Kelly and I buddied, and ended up at a table with a Trustee, one of the Res. Life directors, and a couple of RAs from other buildings.
And I swear to you, it seemed like the Trustees were ASKING about everything we had been told NOT to talk about. They wanted the juicy stuff. They asked if there were many incidents in which we had to go get back-up or call for ambulances and stuff. We just tried to remain as noncommital as possible about those particular questions. My table ended up in a large discussion of politics--most of us were Kerry people, no offense to anyone who might like Bush.
We ate. The salad was amazing--it sounds kinda weird to say that, but it was. It was dark greens, with some kind of vinagrette on it, and Swiss cheese cubes, mandarin oranges, and some sort of nut. It was divine! Then we had the main course--steak, twice-baked potatoes, and a veggie mix. It was good, 'cept for one thing. The steak was still mooing.
Carrot cake for dessert. Meh. It was okay.
Some people talked, we all introduced ourselves, etc. It went on, all was well, and we left. Five out of the six of our staff members walked back together, laughing about the undercooked steak. When we got back to the dorm, we changed into human clothes (since this was a dress-up affair), and then some of the girls said they were going to Taco John's. Poor me was on duty, so I couldn't leave the dorm, but they were wonderful and brought me food.
I'd finished eating, and then Jen and I went on rounds...well, perhaps "went on rounds" would be a little more accurate. It was a Friday--a party night--so we were supposed to do rounds at ten, midnight, and two AM. Rounds means that we walk through the dorm and make sure everything's okay for the night. Well, we were all tired, and there's nobody in the building because it's fall break, soooooo we shirked a little bit. We sort of did ten o'clock rounds (i.e. we checked out a little bit of the building), and then we joined our fellow RA's in the main lounge where we all watched a movie together.
That was actually a lot of fun. See, during RA training we spent a lot of time in our individual staffs, divided up by building or complex: Grand/Liberty, Suites/Cottages, Pierce/White, and Swope. Swope (the all-female dorm) is all by its lonesome, so it was always just the nine of us girls and our R.D. For the entire duration of our RA training, we nine were practically joined at the hip, spending almost all of our time together. We had movie nights, we often ate together, and just hung out. Well, once classes started up, we barely get to see each other except for at our weekly meetings.
So it was really nice to get to just hang out and do nothing. At midnight, we did rounds again, and then I went to bed. It was a great evening, all in all. And I slept quite well--Saturday was a great day to sleep in. That was my Friday.
It's fall break now, and I'm on duty, so now I get to just hang out and hope nothing goes wrong. Whoopee.
Talk to everyone later!
Candy-chan ^_^
"Neighborhood means how far you can walk in flip-flops and not kill your feet." -Yukari, Azumanga Daioh